Sam Shade

Jay Angler wrote:

Sam Shade wrote:That's a totally free, endlessly renewable feed source for at the very least a steady supply of meat (haven't tested the all-forage diet on dairy production yet).

A neighbor lost a goat who had been feeding 2 kids. It may have been a lack of selenium, as our soils are naturally low in it, or it could have been other minerals. So knowing your soil as well as the nutritional value of a variety of forages put together, is important for milk production. I'm sure I read of someone offering a variety of different minerals separately, rather than the "multivitamin" approach which has been shown not to work that well on humans at least. The animals were smart enough to know which minerals they needed and did very well with that approach.  

And wrote:

Elaeagnus ebbingei (another evergreen for goats and rabbits plus edible berries)
Chocolate vine (semi-evergreen vine that produces bizzaro but edible akebia fruit)

These can both be invasive in areas. That can be an asset if you've got enough animals to keep them under control, but worth looking into how controllable they are in your specific climate. There are a couple of Elaeagnus species that are not invasive in my ecosystem, but are elsewhere.

Mine have successfully raised a single generation of kids - I just don't know if my mostly forage diet for them is sufficient to generate the surplus to give us milk as well.

Supposedly elaeagnus ebbingei is a sterile hybrid which keeps it off the invasive list in my area I believe. I know umbellata and pungens are frowned upon for invasiveness.  I think chocolate vine is still tolerated in my area but I know some northeastern states are trying to get rid of it.

Reviving this thread just to sing the praises of a near-exclusive forage diet for my Nigerian Dwarf goats.

It is truly remarkable how perfect a pairing these goats make with the supremely vigorous invasives that love the American Southeast.

My area has the notorious kudzu, along with the less well known but even more expansive privet. We also have loads of Japanese honeysuckle and porcelain berry.

With just these four plants and about an acre of land, I could feed my four goats year-round. The privet and honeysuckle are evergreen and the kudzu and porcelain berry are so vigorous you can gather enough for wintery hay and still have more than enough for warm weather feed. The privet are so tough too that they survive almost complete debarking.

That's a totally free, endlessly renewable feed source for at the very least a steady supply of meat (haven't tested the all-forage diet on dairy production yet).

The next phase for me is working in trees/vines that have more utility to humans as supplements and maybe replacements for the less desirable invasives.

The candidates so far:

Wax myrtle (evergreen shrub forage that's also safe for rabbits plus berries for candlemaking)
Elaeagnus ebbingei (another evergreen for goats and rabbits plus edible berries)
Chocolate vine (semi-evergreen vine that produces bizzaro but edible akebia fruit)
Arctic kiwi (deciduous vine with honeysuckle level annual growth but potential 50lb+ fruit yields per vine)

Add these to the established multiuse fodder powerhouses like mulberry, Jerusalem artichoke and bamboo and buying any kind of goat feed other than a mineral lick or some hay for a brutal winter becomes a distant memory.

Matthew Nistico wrote:

Sam Shade wrote:I have three goumis I started from cuttings two years ago.  Absolute tanks. My dad ripped one of them out of the ground on accident and we put it back in with no ill effects.

No fruit yet though.

Well, get ready because, when they do start fruiting, they fruit A LOT!

I have both seedling and named cultivar goumis.  I have to say that the named cultivars are worth it in terms of superior fruit quality.  Since I have so many, I think this coming season I will observe and mark all of the seedling goumi bushes in my food forest for deletion.  I can use that space for something else and, so long as you have at least three or four thriving, producing goumi bushes, you have all the berries you could likely need.  I'm sure I have more like 10 or a 12 cultivar bushes that would remain.

That's exciting - I've heard very good things about the taste and nutrient profile of goumi berries..

Mine hold their leaves into early winter but I want to expand into the evergreen elaegnus. I understand ebbingei is a favorite landscaping shrub. My hope is a hypervigorous, low maintenance, year round fodder source for goats and rabbits.  Any berries for me  and mine are gravy.

Matthew Nistico wrote:I nominate Goumi berry (Elaeagnus multiflora).  It gets a bad rap from the uneducated simply through association with other elaeagnus species that are considered invasive.  But not so with Goumi - I have many bushes over many years and have seen precious few seedlings.  It doesn't root sucker, either.

In my climate and region - clay soils, temperate, USDA zone 8, but right near to the border of zone 7, high annual rainfall but frequent summer droughts - Goumi has proven highly productive, highly ornamental, and pretty much bullet proof.  Even where I have stuck it in too much shade, it still grows and fruits, just not vigorously.  It seems to thrive on neglect and shrugs off periods of too much/too little rain.

I really don't know why more people aren't growing this species, both inside and outside of the Permieverse!  The only downside I will admit is that the occasional thorn makes dealing with the bush slightly unpleasant.  But still a lot better than brambles or wild raspberry or other truly prickly plants.

I have three goumis I started from cuttings two years ago.  Absolute tanks. My dad ripped one of them out of the ground on accident and we put it back in with no ill effects.

No fruit yet though.

paul wheaton wrote:At this moment, I think there are two big things to get past the sunchoke comedy:


      - harvest after a hard frost


      - build your gut biome to digest this new thing


That's it.  

David the good (one of the staff here at permies.com) just posted  a video bashing sunchokes

Note that david is in alabama.  Warmer climate.  Does he ever get a hard frost?  I also wonder if he goes easy on getting started each year?  

He's right that the gas effect is a big barrier to mass adoption. And I don't think it's a climate thing, as I believe (long time watcher of his youtube channel) he first grew them when he was in TN.

But I think his PTSD from going to big on eating them all at once is clouding his judgement here. From my anecdotal experience, the gut adjusts to gradual exposure over longer periods of time. And the flavor is so good (I think they are superior to potatoes, sweet potatoes and yams in flavor) that I think people will come back to them if they can moderate the amounts initially.

Further, their extreme utility as an animal feed should keep them around long enough for every homesteader to figure out many culinary uses for them.

Gordon Blair wrote:...

And could I really get serious calories (without side effects) eating it as a potato substitute? The inulin conversion would never be close to 100% (I may be wrong about this?) and while some people may adapt to tolerate inulin more with exposure, it's the gastro-bugs that reap most of the calories, right? Maybe some of it is released in a human-digestible form, but it can't compare with eating potatoes and directly getting the starch, I would think..? ...

Inulin tolerance would suggest that your body was digesting the inulin and not leaving so much for the bacteria, hence the lower production of gas. Even if not 100%, that's still a big boost to its caloric value.

Based on my own limited experience with a family of 7 and 5 acres in a 7/8 zone and not a lot of free time, here's what I would do.

#1 Goats. The easiest livestock to feed, bar none. They eat almost all the weeds, including a lot of easy winter fodder: evergreens like privet, pine and honeysuckle.  Their fencing is hard to get right at first,  but once you have that is smooth sailing and you've got a great source of meat and milk for the roughest acres.

#2 Ducks.  Great foragers, good at avoiding predators,  lower maintenance than chickens. Meat and eggs. Just need a little water.

#3 Jerusalem artichokes. The ultimate no input, high yield staple,  available 5 months out of the year fresh. Very useful as animal fodder too.

#4 Figs & Mulberries. Weedy growth,  long harvesting windows, easy to preserve.

#5 Moringa. Needs some babying in the winter but worth it. A multivitamin in salad form.

#6 Kale. Great to have when all the other greens are gone. Handles neglect beautifully.

#7 Cherry tomatoes. Everbearing, prolific, easy harvest and the most prolific self seeder I've ever come across.

#8 Sorghum. The easiest grain. If you can get a cane press, a terrific dual use plant as well.

#9 Chinese chestnuts.  Very vigorous. Early producers. Processing is a little bit of a pain but can't beat the yield.

#10 Water lotus.  Dependent on water again but a beautiful and versatile food crop that can take a beating.

Privet.

Spreads by suckers and seed. Evergreen. Incredibly dense thickets. Will grow thirty feet in sun but even full shade won't stop it. Will pop out of any soil. Can coppice/pollard it several times a year.

Excellent year round goat forage. Chickens like the berries (a rare winter food source). Pretty white flowers.

Produces decent poles and firewood.

Squabs a great urban meat source. Ditto rabbits.

I'm in Memphis and I've seen a goat and a lot of chickens in the city proper.

Once people get used to something there tends to be more of it regardless of zoning and ordinances.

Cécile Stelzer Johnson wrote:

Dian Green wrote:We've had hard frost so I dug out the sunchokes from my gamcod plot.
Got a bit over 10 kg.
Most were lovely, but as I went to the south end of the patch, several were showing damage.
The ground was not disturbed, so not likely rodents, and I didn't see any bugs around them that could be the cause.
We do have white grubs in large numbers and I could smell ants as I was digging.  
Anh ideas what could be the cause and any suggestions on how to help them next year?
At least they seem to handle the damage well and don't all rot or anything.

So, 10 Kgs out of 200 square feet, so a plot that is about 14 ft X 14 ft, if square. That's not too bad. I don't grow the pink kind as they are really gassy and give me cramps. The white kind isn't nearly as bad.
I suspect if the damage was due to white grubs or ants, you would have found some when digging them out,  but you do not mention that.
If you look really close, I think you will find small, narrow, gnawing teeth marks by a rodent. My bet is also voles.
https://fox-pest.com/pest-files/voles/
Know thy enemy! This article will give you a leg up when fighting these nasty little critters. They reproduce very fast, too.
One saving grace is that although they can climb trees, they can't climb smooth surfaces. That is why I grow mine in half 55 gallon plastic barrels. Even on trees, they are not good climbers. (But they will girdle any young tree to death if allowed to get close! - Ask me how I know!)
If you want to grow sunchokes in the presence of voles, your best bet is to establish a barrier. Tight mesh that they cannot get through, under or over would be best, or grow them in containers, like me. An advantage of growing them in containers is that at the end of the season, you can collect every little bit of sunchoke without having to dig to Timbuktu. You can then select your biggest ones for eating and replant your smallest ones immediately, just like garlic,
That is one less crop you won't have to plant next spring!
The bad part about planting them in a container is that they are then totally dependent on you for watering and enriching the soil... I do the same for sweet potatoes to keep voles away and not having to dig too far.

I just plant sweet potatoes and the voles leave the Jerusalem artichokes alone to decimate the sweet potatoes.